Typhoon

Written by Joseph Conrad

Narrated by Scott Brick

Calm, stoic captain Mac Whirr has just been given command of a new steamship, the Nan-Shan. He and his crew are transporting Asian workers across the China Sea when a sudden drop in atmospheric pressure alerts Mac Whirr of "some uncommonly dirty weather knocking about."

Soon the steamship, her crew, and the human cargo are caught in the midst of a vicious typhoon. The impending disaster brings out the best and the worst of Mac Whirr; Jukes, the chief mate; Solomon, the wise engineer; and the rest of the crew. Conrad shows that in the struggle for survival, true character will always be exposed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Jun 15, 2009
• ISBN: 9781400180899

Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) was a Polish-British writer, regarded as one of the greatest novelists in the English language. Though he was not fluent in English until the age of twenty, Conrad mastered the language and was known for his exceptional command of stylistic prose. Inspiring a reoccurring nautical setting, Conrad’s literary work was heavily influenced by his experience as a ship’s apprentice. Conrad’s style and practice of creating anti-heroic protagonists is admired and often imitated by other authors and artists, immortalizing his innovation and genius.

Reviews for Typhoon

[garrison0550 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In my opinion, his best work.

[soraxtm-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

O my GOD!!

[feign_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the greatest examples in literature of landscape and nature treated as character. Although on one level this classic sea story is about the uneasy relations between the phlegmatic captain and his high-strung first mate, the antagonist, and in many ways the main character, is the storm itself:This is the disintegrating power of a great wind: it isolates one from one's kind. An earthquake, a landslip, an avalanche, overtake a man incidentally, as it were--without passion. A furious gale attacks him like a personal enemy, tries to grasp his limbs, fastens upon his mind, seeks to rout his very spirit out of him.This is my favorite of Conrad's novels, simply because the writing is so strong, evoking all the senses--you can feel it, hear, smell and taste the wind and water, and of course visualize it in all its shadowy hues, while the currents of man versus man, and men versus the elements, rage around each other like the storm itself. At the end, I felt like I had to rinse the salt water from my body.

[thecrow2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was a real struggle to get through this book. It can be partly because of the language used but mainly happened because I didn`t care what was happening with the character. No even a little bit.

[meditationesmartini · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This grips and engrosses, and evokes the fearsome moments anyone who's been in heavy water in heavy weather knows too well without being pedantic about it (no one drowns--just about that helplessness with drowning somewhere at the back of the mind). It does it well, and so you dwell on the weather and water and not on the weird stuff about what makes a bold sailor bold and what turns a Chinaman into a beast.

[leslie398 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I used this novella to try out the Serial Reader app on my iPod. I think that having the story broken up into the small chunks interfered a little with my enjoyment but perhaps this Conrad just isn't up to the level of his longer novels.